With the opening of an interactive design studio in Brentwood last week, Thomas James Homes is cementing its role in the rebuilding of Pacific Palisades and in shaping the future of L.A.’s Westside.
The opening of this studio immediately precedes the completion of the company’s model home in the fire-ravaged Los Angeles neighborhood, with which it will showcase what is possible with its guarantee of a one-year construction time at $650 per square foot.
“That grand opening is 310 days after the fires were declared extinguished,” Jamie Mead, chief executive of Aliso Viejo-based Thomas James Homes, said of the model house. “It’s not only showcasing our beautiful home and the things we can do to help people build; it’s also showing our ability to deliver – quickly – this beautiful home at a fixed price and guaranteed delivery time.”
With the design studio – the company’s eighth nationally – Thomas James Homes brings its one-stop-shop style of business in proximity to residents displaced by January’s Palisades Fire. It will also complement the work the homebuilder has already been doing in the neighborhood, where it has about 30 constructions under contract and aims to add as many as 100 more next year.
“Those folks are all over,” Mead said of the displaced landowners. “We don’t know exactly where, but we decided on an accessible location within Brentwood.”
Ready to rebuild
The way Mead sees it, he thinks his company is in the “right place at the right time,” he said.
With a collection of homes already constructed in Westside neighborhoods like Mar Vista and cities like Santa Monica, Mead says TJH is all too familiar with the aesthetic and planning requirements in the area. In fact, the company had built more than 50 homes in Pacific Palisades before the fires and had four under construction when the disaster struck.
“Our foundation is Southern California. Probably half of our homes were built in Los Angeles,” he said. “We’ve approached all of this from a scale point of view while also understanding the specifics of permitting and planning. We had these relationships before the fires and continue to carry those relationships forward.”
One key to TJH’s success is the modular nature of its designs. Given the relative homogeneity of Pacific Palisades property scales, Mead said eight of its main home plans fit into 80% of the neighborhood’s lots. Those designs can be expanded accordingly with larger property sizes and certainly be made smaller as the owner determines.
And eager to avoid accusations of building cookie-cutter communities, there are assortments of different treatments inside and outside of homes that should help replicate the relative variety of the area.
“There’s enough variety,” Mead said. “Each house has different looks. Because we’re doing so many houses now, we’re focused on building communities rather than just one house at a time.”
The company uses technology to survey a property for its dimensions and characteristics to start modeling designs and will typically also visit sites to augment that planning. In terms of the home finishings, TJH works with several dedicated vendors to provide options to homeowners.
TJH has four employees in this new Brentwood studio and will place additional people in the model home. All told, the company has about 20 employees focused on Pacific Palisades work.
“We have a very comprehensive way of delivering price expectations,” Mead added. “We have a process that we use that gives us enough comfort that we can take the risk of building, cost and delivery time for ourselves and away from the homeowner.”
TJH is also a member of the nonprofit organization Builders Alliance, which formed following the fires to bring together 10 homebuilders for the purposes of providing time- and cost-efficient end-to-end home recovery service to victims.
